


Big Stick Diplomacy

by lemonsharks



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Backstory, Camaraderie, F/F, Femslash, Josephine's Improbably Large Sword Is Just As Mighty As Her Pen, Late Night Conversations, Missing Scene, Swordplay, Team as Family, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra isn't sleeping, and Josephine only ever visits the practice court by dark of night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Stick Diplomacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/gifts).



> Full disclosure: this is born out of a crack dream I had where Josephine was (1) a companion and (2) a two-handed warrior with an improbably large sword. For Kit, shameless enabler that she is.
> 
> Also, in case you're wondering: [big stick diplomacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology) is an actual thing, thank you Teddy Roosevelt.

Sweat beads on Josephine's neck, and the breath of the Frostbacks chills her. She has linen on her back and wool on her legs, plain—hair braided quickly, roughly, a single plait, finished with cord instead of ribbon. No one will recognize her silhouette now, nor would they with a full moon and a sky full of stars. Voices still drift from the tavern, though the last of tonight's music faded over an hour ago.

The clouds hang heavy overhead, promising late snow or early rain. Tomorrow she will send one of her people to ensure that their guests, and the forces their guests have brought, are comfortable, are supplied, are in no danger of turning around and marching home. The borrowed sword rests heavy in her hands. Its leather grip is worn slick with years of service; its edge such that it might draw blood from air. 

There is a sting in the back of each hand, a pull in the muscles of her forearms. She shifts her grip, swings the blade into the dummy's side, smiles a little—a little manically—when the post shudders and handfuls of straw fall out. Her cousins would laugh, seeing her so out of practice. They would pelt her with jeers and blows of their own. 

She has not fenced regularly since her last months in Orlais, has not held a greatsword since her father gave his to her youngest brother, his favorite child. 

She does not think of that; her cousins, her brothers, her sister are not _here_. The blade comes away from the dummy, and she pivots in a motion like dancing, misses petticoats around her ankles, gathered silk around her knees. Her pommel hits home against the dummy's chin; the impact vibrates through both her shoulders, and she stumbles a moment in her recovery. Josephine settles, breathes; walks a half-circle around the dummy, en garde. 

This is an entirely different thing from _fencing_ , with its slim blades and agile steps and acid, masked banter. As much a part of the Game as insult and flattery and poison. A flesh-and-bone opponent would have bled out from these two blows, to say nothing of those gone before. She raises the blade and brings it down into the dummy's shoulder with a strangled cry, the crack of steel on hardwood. 

Applause echoes against the courtyard walls, the tenor of it almost confused, and not _sarcastic_ enough for Sera. Josephine shoves the point of the sword into the soft earth at her feet and turns in the direction of the sound, toward the barracks steps. Her hair has come partially loose, and it sticks to her face in curling tendrils. She brushes it back. 

Cassandra, in slippers and warm knit leggings, her shirt untucked, her eyes tired—though the hour is late, she will not have slept. Not until she's bled that damned secret book of all its mysteries, no matter what any of them say. She knows the Inquisitor has not spoken to her in three weeks, does not know what to say in the wake of Caer Oswin.

"You are hardly the first person I expected to find here, Ambassador," she says, with a softess in her voice. 

Cassandra speaks the language of hitting things—it is not her mother tongue; rather, the one she found, the one she has nurtured in herself, the one she most prefers. Strike and parry and leverage in blood-wet ground have their own set of words-without-words. 

Josephine can still count on one hand the number of times she's drawn blood, almost all before her fifteenth nameday. Once in Celene's court, with a partner who insisted on live weapons for the _sport_ of it. Insult would have been taken at refusal, and she had not made the mistake that brought about that incident again. The affair had very nearly cost her posting, though it won Antiva a friend or two in the process.

"What _were_ you expecting of me, then?" 

Cassandra descends the steps with a grace that was trained into her young, and stops beside Josephine's gutted dummy. Touches its chin. The head wobbles. She hesitates. Assesses, reconsiders, lingers over the scene with her eyes. Cassandra has her weapons with her, as though she means to defend Skyhold against invasion single-handed.

Josephine smiles, and places both hands on the hilt of her sword. A flush rises to the apples of her cheeks, and she is glad that her complexion and the gray night hide it well.

After a moment, Cassandra says, "That you would be in bed at this hour, writing letters by candlelight. Practicing the gentle art of negotiation."

"We teach our daughters many skills in Antiva," she says, a joke. The Seeker will fill in the rest, and does; the corners of her eyes shift a fraction. Josephine continues, "And sometimes, a show of force is required."

The sound Cassandra makes is not _quite_ a laugh, though she does smirk. A pleasant expression, a welcome, but laced with self-satisfaction. 

"Would you care for a round with someone who fights back? It appears," and here she pushes the dummy's head off its shoulders. "Youhave bested Ser Roger already." 

"Was that his name? He never introduced himself. A pity." Another moment passes; the chill on her neck, the gooseflesh on her arms, is surely from the mountain air. 

"I do not _sit_ on my invitations, you know," Cassandra says. And yawns. 

Josephine frees her sword from the ground and takes up her guard again.


End file.
